Ships

Ships are large buoyant marine vessels. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and cargo or passenger capacity. Ships are used on lakes, seas, and rivers for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing, entertainment, public safety, and warfare. Historically, a "ship" was a vessel with sails rigged in a specific manner. Ships and boats have developed alongside mankind. In armed conflict and in daily life they have become an integral part of modern commercial and military systems. Fishing boats are used by millions of fishermen throughout the world. Military forces operate vessels for combat and to transport and support forces ashore. Ships were key in history's great explorations and scientific and technological development. Navigators such as Zheng He spread such inventions as the compass and gunpowder. Ships have been used for such purposes as colonization and the slave trade, and have served scientific, cultural, and humanitarian needs. New crops that had come from the Americas via the European seafarers in the 16th century significantly contributed to the world's population growth.

Quotes

Sorted alphabetically by author or source

A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for. ~ William Greenough Thayer Shedd

We came across from Korea
We braved the wind and the rain
We came a thousand miles just to be here
And you want to send we back again
We crossed Malaysian waters
We sailed the South China Sea
We stopped at Singapore and Jakarta
And you want to send we back to sea
Don't send we back, have mercy upon us
We know you don't want us but we've got no one
Don't send we back, we've run out of water
We won't last the morning in the baking sun The Indonesian Islands
We stopped at every one
As for the Philippines we tried 'em
And you want to turn our boat around.
- 10cc Look Hear? Don't Send We Back

She walks the waters like a thing of life,
And seems to dare the elements to strife.
- Lord Byron, The Corsair (1814), Canto I, Stanza 3.

She bears her down majestically near,
Speed on her prow, and terror in her tier.
- Lord Byron, The Corsair (1814), Canto III, Stanza 15.

I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a [large] ship to founder. . . . Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.
- The captain of The Titanic. Quoted in The Watchtower magazine, published by Jehovah's Witnesses, April 15, 1988.

For why drives on that ship so fast,
Without or wave or wind?
The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798; 1817).
Outwards from London, Glasgow, Amsterdam and Hamburg there radiated the lines - shipping lines, railway lines, telegraph lines - that were the sinews of Western imperial power. Regular steamships connected the great commercial centres to every corner of the globe. They criss-crossed the oceans; they plied its great lakes; they chugged up and down its navigable rivers. At the ports where they loaded and unloaded their passengers and cargoes, there were railway stations, and from these emanated the second great network of the Victorian age: the iron rails, along which ran rhythmically, in accordance with scrupulously detailed timetables, a clunking cavalcade of steam trains. A third network, of copper and rubber rather than iron, enabled the rapid telegraphic communication of orders of all kinds: orders to be obeyed by imperial functionaries, orders to be filled by overseas merchants - even holy orders could use the telegraph to communicate with the thousands of missionaries earnestly disseminating West European creeds and ancillary beneficial knowledge to the heathen. These networks bound the world together as never before, seeming to 'annihilate distance' and thereby creating truly global markets for commodities, manufactures, labour and capital. In turn, it was these markets that peopled the prairies of the American Mid-West and the steppe of Siberia, grew rubber in Malaya and tea in Ceylon, bred sheep in Queensland and cattle in the pampas, dug diamonds from the pipes of Kimberley and gold from the rich seams of the Rand.
- Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006), p. 15-16

It is a national humiliation that we are now compelled to pay from twenty to thirty million dollars annually (exclusive of passage money which we should share with vessels of other nations) to foreigners for doing the work which should be done by American vessels American built, American owned, and American manned. This is a direct drain upon the resources of the country of just so much money; equal to casting it into the sea, so far as this nation is concerned.
- Ulysses S. Grant, message to the Senate and House of Representatives (23 March 1870), as quoted in the Congressional Globe, vol. 42, p. 2,177.

A great ship asks deep waters.
- George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651).

It is cheering to see that the rats are still around—the ship is not sinking.
- Eric Hoffer, "Thoughts of Eric Hoffer, Including: 'Absolute Faith Corrupts Absolutely'", The New York Times Magazine (April 25, 1971), p. 24.

Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
- Samuel Johnson, reported in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (1759).

A navy is essentially and necessarily aristocratic. True as may be the political principles for which we are now contending they can never be practically applied or even admitted on board ship, out of port, or off soundings. This may seem a hardship, but it is nevertheless the simplest of truths. Whilst the ships sent forth by the Congress may and must fight for the principles of human rights and republican freedom, the ships themselves must be ruled and commanded at sea under a system of absolute despotism.
- John Paul Jones, letter to the Naval Committee of Congress (14 September 1775).

I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way.
- John Paul Jones, letter to Le Ray de Chaumont (16 November 1778), as quoted in The Naval History of the United States (1890) by Willis John Abbot, p. 82.

Yet when all these reservations are made, there is no doubt that the development of the long-range armed sailing ship heralded a fundamental advance of Europe's place in the world. With these vessels, the naval powers of the West were in a position to control the oceanic trade routes and to overawe all societies vulnerable to the workings of sea power.
- Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987), p. 26
And the wind plays on those great sonorous harps, the shrouds and masts of ships.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hyperion (1839), Book I, Chapter VII.

Build me straight, O worthy Master!
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel
That shall laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Building of the Ship (1849), line 1.

There's not a ship that sails the ocean,
But every climate, every soil,
Must bring its tribute, great or small,
And help to build the wooden wall!
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Building of the Ship (1849), line 66.

Like ships that have gone down at sea,
When heaven was all tranquillity.
- Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh (1817), The Light of the Harem.

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.
- William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1600s), Act II, scene 2, line 196.

A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.
- William Greenough Thayer Shedd, attributed without citation in Gary Ninneman, C.I.A.: Church in Atrophy (Xulon Press, 2006), p. 167.

Ships, dim discover'd, dropping from the clouds.
- James Thomson, The Seasons, Summer (1727), line 946.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 703-04.

A strong nor'wester's blowing, Bill;
Hark! don't ye hear it roar now?
Lord help 'em, how I pities them
Unhappy folks on shore, now.
- Charles Dibden, Sailor's Consolation. Attributed to Pitt (song writer) and Hood.

The true ship is the ship builder.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Of History.

For she is such a smart little craft,
Such a neat little, sweet little craft—
Such a bright little,
Tight little,
Slight little,
Light little,
Trim little, slim little craft!
- W. S. Gilbert, Ruddigore.

The wooden wall alone should remain unconquered.
- Herodotus, VII. 141. Relating the second reply of the Pythian Oracle to the Athenians. B.C. 480. Themistocles interpreted this to mean the ships. See Grote, History of Greece, quoted in Timbs, Curiosities of History. Nepos, Themistocles.

Ships that sailed for sunny isles,
But never came to shore.
- Thomas Kibble Hervey, The Devil's Progress.

Morn on the waters, and purple and bright
Bursts on the billows the flushing of light.
O'er the glad waves, like a child of the sun,
See the tall vessel goes gallantly on.
- Thomas Kibble Hervey, The Convict Ship.

Lord, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream.
An', taught by time, I tak' it so—exceptin' always steam.
From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see thy Hand, O God—
Predestination in the stride o' yon connectin'-rod.
- Rudyard Kipling, McAndrew's Hymn.

The Liner she's a lady, an' she never looks nor 'eeds—
The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband an' 'e gives 'er all she needs;
But, oh, the little cargo-boats, that sail the wet seas roun',
They're just the same as you an' me, a'-plyin' up an' down.
- Rudyard Kipling, The Liner She's a Lady.

Her plates are scarred by the sun, dear lass,
And her ropes are taut with the dew,
For we're booming down on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail.
We're sagging south on the Long Trail, the trail that is always new.
- Rudyard Kipling, L'Envoi, There's a Whisper down the Field.

Because it costs so much to keep one in paint and powder.
- Chester W. Nimitz, when asked why a ship is always referred to as "she", to Society of Sponsors of the United States Navy, Washington, D.C. (February 13, 1940); reported in Associated Press dispatch, The New York Times (February 15, 1940), p. 39.

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters.
- Psalms. CVII. 23.

And let our barks across the pathless flood
Hold different courses.
- Walter Scott, Kenilworth, Chapter XXIX. Introductory verses.

She comes majestic with her swelling sails,
The gallant Ship: along her watery way,
Homeward she drives before the favouring gales;
Now flirting at their length the streamers play,
And now they ripple with the ruffling breeze.
- Robert Southey, Sonnet XIX.

It would have been as though he [Pres. Johnson] were in a boat of stone with masts of steel, sails of lead, ropes of iron, the devil at the helm, the wrath of God for a breeze, and hell for his destination.
- Emory A. Storrs, speech in Chicago (c. 1865–56), when President Johnson threatened to imitate Cromwell and force Congress with troops to adjourn. As reported in the Chicago Tribune.

And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill.
- Alfred Tennyson, Break, Break, Break, Stanza 3.

Whoever you are, motion and reflection are especially for you,
The divine ship sails the divine sea for you.
- Walt Whitman, Song of the Rolling Earth, 2.

Speed on the ship;—But let her bear
No merchandise of sin,
No groaning cargo of despair
Her roomy hold within;
No Lethean drug for Eastern lands,
Nor poison-draught for ours;
But honest fruits of toiling hands
And Nature's sun and showers.
- John Greenleaf Whittier, The Ship-Builders.

If all the ships I have at sea
Should come a-sailing home to me,
Ah, well! the harbor would not hold
So many ships as there would be
If all my ships came home from sea.
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox, My Ships, from Poems of Passion.

One ship drives East, and one drives West,
By the selfsame wind that blows;
It's the set of the sails, and not the gales,
Which determines the way it goes.
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Winds of Fate.

The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904)

Quotes reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 223.

A salvage service which hardly exceeds ordinary towage is naturally remunerated on a very different scale from an heroic rescue from imminent destruction.
- Nathaniel Lindley, Baron Lindley, L.J., "The City of Chester" (1884), L. R. 9 Pr. Div. 202.

The impulsive desire to save human life when in peril is one of the most beneficial instincts of humanity, and is nowhere more salutary in its results than in bringing help to those who, exposed to destruction from the fury of winds and waves, would perish if left without assistance.
- , Scaramanga v. Stamp (1880), L. R. 5 Com. PI. Div. 304.

I am sorry to see a decreasing tendency to aid vessels that are broken down.
- Butt, J., "The Benlarig" (1888), L. R. 14 Pro. D. 6.

It is of great importance that the laws by which the contracts of so numerous and so useful a body of men as the sailors are supposed to be guided, should not be overturned.
- Lord Kenyon, C.J., Cutter v. Powell (1795), 6 T. R. 320.